9 The Importance of Being Broken for Others - PDF document

1 9 The Importance of Being Broken for Ot
9 The Importance of Being Broken for Others Immediately after my conversion in 1961, I was introduced to the late Mondo, one of Uganda. From time to time I would visit Mondo; I was profoundly attracted to his emphasis on walking in the light. It was through Mondo’s teaching that I came the 1930s several Ugandans had discovered that, though they were busy having Bible studies, services, the things they were doing were not had to ask themselves: did Jesus die for their meetings? Or was it for something else? They found that Christ gives the instruction: make sure you are reconciled to your brother the day (Matthew 5:23). The command is to go quour devotions; what Christ so dearly paid the price for is our relationship with God and with each other. When those relationships are violated, our devotions are an abomination to God. A broken relationship is a poison. The Bible makes no exceptions: both the offended and the offender are equally guilty before God. You are to seek out against you. If someone wrongs you, you have th The Revival Fellowship also found that weg in the light. Both James and John agree that rd (James 5:16, I John 1:7). When there is no counterfeits. Every time I met with Mondo I was greeted with a threefold challenge: ‘Are you repenting?’ ‘Are you walking in the light?’ ‘Are you being broken?’ Mondo’s questions were directed to the kind of fellowship I was having with the Christians with whom I was doing mission work. rking together but for fellowshipping together. He died for I remember when I walked into my first ople wee singing and praising God. Most of the songs were about the blood of the Lamb that was slain. Different people stood up one after uld burst out in songs of praise. Even though I was a little shaky, I finally started to sing praises for the blood of the Laand embraced me; I could feel the warmth in hi ‘Is this the fellowship?’ I asked myself. These brot

2 hers and sisters hardly majored on my l
hers and sisters hardly majored on my later. ‘What we hear is not your sin, but God’s work in your life. We hear you giving witness to God’s power to break the chains of sin. We know that, left to brother and confess to him, ‘I have done foolishly, forgive me.’ This can only occur when grace takes over and pushes our pride into a tight corner.’ One lady wrote me recently about a Revival Fellowship meeting which was meeting le began to be convicted of the sin of dishonesty in their lives. They confessed this sin to one another. One of Ami’s spies was in the to him, he was on his knees confessing his conviction of sin, he had the desire to know Christ. Now I understand what Mondo meant. If I am having Bible study but disowning my In the mission command that I had heard as a young man, the emphasis had be on go, came first. I was to love my bothers and From Mondo I learned that walking in the light means a total sharing of my secrets with my sisters and brothers. Christ spoke to his disciples, ‘I no longer call you servants; a servant knows not the secrets of his Lord, but I have shared with you the secrets of my father’ (John 15:15). When we share our secrets, there is a tota When a body of Christians begins to walk in the light together, there is no room left for gossip. Walking in the light puts gossip out of business. Nothing needs to be talked over in Instead of majoring on a brother’s weakness,promote him where he is strong. I knew that, if it was up to me, I could never walk in the light with my brother or sister. Gradually, I realized that walking in the light was not so much what I was able to do, but what Christ had made me to be-- a light, or better stilconsidered the African hurricane lamp: for its light to shine, the hurricane lamp requires a transparent glass, a trimmed wick, and unpolluted oil. Ifwick is untrimmed, the light flickers. And when the oil is contaminated, the light grows

3 dim and eventually dies. Many a Christ
dim and eventually dies. Many a Christian life would like to shine without being transparent and without being trimmed. And in Matthew 5 there is a whole list When we cannot be a light, we cannot walksentment instead of reconciliation. There is lust instead of love, contention instead of contentment, concealment where there should be Every time I lose an argument with my wife, I feel I am ready for a divorce. But, beyond his blood, has paid the price for my marriage. My identity has been paid for. It no longer depends upon winning or losing an argument. So every day when I am ready to swear and curse, I know Jesus paid for my peace. Instead of going to fight Judas, I go to wash his feet. I was saved But we are mistaken if we believe-- as I think perhaps many in the Revival Fellowship did -- that confessing our sins to one another is the the fruits of the spirit which are the work of It is a work of grace which fills my grace which makes me restless until I can forgive my sin to a brother in my devotional group, if I am not practicing the whole counsel The God whom we serve, the God of Abraham, Is orphans. He is the defender of widows, the hungry and justice to those who are denied it (Psalms 68:5, 146:7). And he has coLet the weak and the orphans have justice, be fair to the wretched and destitute; rescue the weak and needy, save them from the clutches of the wicked. Psalm 82 One who suppresses God’s truth fessed sin. If it is a work of grace to humbly confess my sin, it is likewise a work of grace to walk among the broken down houses of my community and to be touched by the poverty of those who dwell there. If it is a work of grace to feel remorse until I am reunited with a sister against whom I neighbors. It is a work of grace to become part But we must remember that, before we are a light to our neighbors and to the world, turn to darkness. If we are to avoid the futility which comes wh

4 en the blind lead the blind, if we e ano
en the blind lead the blind, if we e another, we must first be broken. There is a popular expression among the fellowship that describes this disposition in the is a ‘broken’ individual. To be broken is to have no pride, for where there is pride, there is no confession and no forgiveness. To heal a broken When Jesus fed the five thousand, took the five loaves of bread, blessed them, broke (Matthew 14:1). One brother of the Revival read at Jesus did in feeding the multitude was very symbolic of what was going to happen to his body. To his own disciples he Unless we are broken, we are of no use to broken, we are of no Christian community and say, ‘This is my body ces at your disposal. Take them and use them are not broken. We are too proud to give our n’t want to lose ourselves for sinners. We want So, like Judas, we make only a partial commiof his function in the body, we see our identity in how we are different from If we are following Jesus, we cannot wait for the perfect community. It was while we were yet sinners that Christ allowed his body to be broken for us. Jesus lays the foundation for rd Jesus Christ, the same night in which he was his: ‘This is my body broken for you.’ Without the crucifixion of pride, we will always consider ourselves too inadequate to never want to run the risk of trying, because will fail. Jesus said to his discipleat the Father was sufficient. The problem is that we fail to realize that it is the small things -- a few loaves of bread or Moses could not believe that God would use the weak and base things of the world to declare his glory. I know how my wife and I once tried to avletters from our fellow refugees in Nairobi asking uld we give to other refugee families? Gradually the truth about Christ started to tawe had and bless it. He was not asking us to rely enough to feed ourselves became, through the Father’s sufficiency, food and housing for many refugee

5 s. We are broken for the community, an
s. We are broken for the community, and in can no longer stand aloof and protect ourselves, we can no longer be ‘spiritually incorrectable.’ As we walk in the light with one another, as weempowered by the Holy Spirit, and together we are given to the In that giving we are broken again. Weinadequacies, and we are broken by the very peophelp of Mrs. Hans Rookmaaker, I opened up an a village and pick up an orphan. As I would drive away, ten other orphans would be chasin It then began to hurt...’Lord, why am I taking one when there are ten others? Can’t you the deep silence of my frustration, I would feel the conviction of the master saying, ‘It is this one I wanted you to take.’ God wanted to teach me then of my own inwas clearly far greater than all my resources. My limitations, in light of the enormity of the evil I s kingdom. I was humbled and broken by my own God loved me, for it was not just my service he wanted; he wanted me. When we are broken by grace to serve God’s people, we find that our brokenness is only a beginning. Christ gave himself for us in humility and lowliness. The very people he came when things stopped going well. But somehow weshould be different than our master’s. We have cross, despised and rejected by men. So when we give ourselves to others, we are discouraged to the point of giving up when things go wrong. When we begin to be brokenhindered by the very people we are trying to help, we want to abandon them to Satan. We want to say, ‘Lord, it wasn’t these sinners I wanted to die for. Isn’t there someone else, someone more grateful, more talented? Isn’t make me feel more Our questions become the masks behind But as we learn to abide in Christ, as we live in obedience to him and are broken for us Christian success stories. It is not our reputation and successful service God wants. He waHe wants a people who can say with their lives: It is then and only then that we can